<h2>What are the key criteria our project must meet to join?</h2>

<p>In order to join, projects need to meet certain criteria.  A rough

  outline of those criteria are as follows:</p>

<p>

<ul><li>The project must be a software development or documentation

    project.  Non-software projects to advance the cause of software

    freedom, while important and useful, are beyond the scope of

    Conservancy.</li>

    <li>The project must be exclusively devoted to the development and

    documentation of FLOSS.  The project's goals must be consistent with

    on Conservancy by the IRS' 501(c)(3) rules.  Namely, the goal of the

    project must to develop and document the software in a not-for-profit

    way to advance the public good, and must develop the software in

    public.</li>

    <li>The project must be licensed in a way fitting with software

      freedom principles.  Specifically, all software of the project

      should be licensed under a license that is listed both as

      a <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html">Free

      Software license by the Free Software Foundation</a> and as

      an <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical">Open

      Source license by the Open Source Initiative</a>.  All software

      or

        <a href="http://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/">CC-0</a>.</li>

   <li>The project should have an existing, vibrant, diverse community

      that develops and documents the software.  For example, projects

      that have been under development for less than a year or only a

      “proof of concept” implementation are generally not

      eligible.</li>

</ul>

</p>

<p>While any project meeting the criteria above can apply, meeting these

  favors projects that are well-established and have some track record of

  substantial contributions from a community of volunteer developers.

  have an established userbase and interest, but also tries to accept some

  smaller projects with strong potential.</p>

<h2>Is our project required to accept membership if offered?</h2>

<p>Not at all.  Many projects apply and subsequently decide not to join a

  non-profit, or decide to join a different non-profit entity.  Don't

  worry about “wasting our time” if your project's developers

  aren't completely sure yet if they want to join Conservancy.  If

  membership in Conservancy is currently a legitimate consideration for

  your project, we encourage you to apply.  We'd rather that you apply and

  turn down an offer for membership than fail to apply and have to wait

<p>It's true that we would love to fund our member projects if it were

  possible, because we believe they deserve to be funded.  However, that's

  not typically what a fiscal sponsor does.  The term “fiscal

  sponsor“ is often used in non-profit settings and has a standard

  meaning there.  But, to those not familiar with non-profit operations,

  it comes across as a bit of a misnomer.</p>

<p>In this context, a fiscal sponsor is a non-profit organization that,

  rather than fund a project directly, provides the required

  infrastructure and facilitates the project's ability to raise its own

  funds.  Conservancy therefore assists your project in raising funds, and

  allows your project to hold those funds and spend them on activities

  and the FLOSS development and documentation goals of the project.</p>

<h2>What will the project leaders have to agree to if our project joins?</h2>

<p>Once you're offered membership, Conservancy will send you a draft

  fiscal sponsorship agreement (FSA).  A template

  of <a href="/members/apply/ConservancyFSATemplate.pdf">Conservancy's FSA

  is available in PDF</a> (and

  in <a href="/members/apply/conservancy-fsa-template.tex">LaTeX</a>).

  Please note that the preceding documents are <strong>only

  templates</strong>.  Please do not try to fill one out and send it to

  Conservancy.  The final FSA between Conservancy and your project needs

  to be negotiated between us, and as can been seen in the template, the

  Representation section needs substantial work.  If your project is

  offered membership, Conservancy will work with you adapt the FSA

  template to suit the needs and specific circumstances of your project.

  This is painstaking work, and it's better to complete that work after

  both Conservancy and the project are quite sure that they both want the

  project to join Conservancy.</p>

<p>Substantively, member projects continue to operate in the same way as

devoted to software freedom and operates consistently with the

project's development other than to provide administrative assistance.

project and assists with the logistics of receiving donations, but does

not involve itself with technical or artistic decision making.  Projects

activities.</p>

<h2>Once our project joins, who holds its assets (money, copyrights, trademarks, etc.)?</h2>

manages and disburses those assets in accordance with the wishes of the

project are kept track of separately for each specific project and the

management of those funds is directed by the project.  For example, if a

donor wanted to contribute $100 to Project Foo, they would formally make

earmark the funds for use by Project Foo.  Project Foo would then tell the

Conservancy how that money should be spent.  As long as that expense is a

legitimate non-profit expense fitting with Conservancy's non-profit

  mission, Conservancy pays the expense on the Project's behalf.</p>

<p>Similarly, any copyrights, trademarks, domain name or other assets

members is a vehicle through which copyright ownership in the project can

be unified.  There are several advantages to having a consolidated

copyright structure, including that it makes enforcement activity easier

and more effective.  However, copyright, trademark, and domain name

it is an option for those projects that ask for it.</p>

<h2>If our project joins, must it be a member project of Conservancy forever?</h2>

months' notice.  Federal tax exemption law, though, states that projects

meaning the assets cannot be transferred to an individual or a for-profit

entity.  Generally, a project would either find another fiscal sponsor or

form their own independent tax-exempt non-profit.</p>

<p>We fully expect that some Conservancy projects will ultimately wish to

  form their own non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations; that's why we design

  our agreements with projects to allow them to leave to another 501(c)(3)

  organization.  Typically, projects join Conservancy because the project

  leaders don't want the burdens of running a non-profit themselves.

  Often, as projects grow, leaders get interested in the non-profit

  management and organizational side of the activities and are then

  prepared to take on the additional work themselves.</p>

<h2>Tax-Deductible, Earmarked Donations</h2>

<p>Member projects can receive earmarked donations through Conservancy.

   Since Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) charity incorporated in New York,

   donors can often deduct the donation on their USA taxes.  Additionally,

   the donors can indicate that their donation should be used to advance a

   specific member project, and those funds are kept in a separate account

   for the member project by Conservancy.  This structure prevents

   developers from having to commingle project funds with their own

   personal accounts or having to set up their own project specific

   account.</p>

   limits that the law places on what member projects can do with their

   assets, but those limits are the same as if the project was an

   independent non-profit entity.  Usually, the project leadership

   instructs Conservancy's leadership on how the project's funds are spent.

   Conservancy spends these funds on the project's behalf on any expenses

   that constitute appropriate activity under Conservancy's 501(c)(3)

   not-for-profit mission.  Some typical uses of earmarked donations by

   Conservancy's member projects are:

<ul>

<li>funding travel expenses for project developers to attend relevant

  conferences.</li> 

<li>FLOSS license enforcement and compliance activity.</li>

</ul>

</p>

<h2>Asset Stewardship</h2>

<p>Conservancy can hold any assets for the project on its behalf.  This

  includes copyrights, trademarks, domain names, physical computer

  equipment or anything that should be officially held in the name of the

  project.  Member projects are not required that Conservancy hold all

  assets of a project. (For example, member projects are

  However, Conservancy can accommodate the needs of projects that want

  their assets under the control of a not-for-profit entity and exercised

  only for the public good.</p>

<h2>Contract Negotiation and Execution</h2>

<p>Projects sometimes need to negotiate and execute a contract with a

  company.  For example, when a project wants to organize and run a

  conference, the venue usually has a complicated contract for rental of

  the space and services.  Conservancy assists projects in the negotiation

  of such contracts, and can sign them on behalf of the project.</p>

  too common.  At request of the project's leaders, Conservancy can carry

  out license enforcement activity on behalf of the project's copyright

  holders.</p>

<h2>Fundraising Assistance</h2>

<p>Conservancy provides various tools and advice to member projects on

  methods of raising funds for their projects' earmarked accounts.</p>

<h2>Avoid Non-Profit Administrivia</h2>

<p>Member projects can continue to operate in the same way they did before

any other layer of corporate management, without having to maintain

corporate records and without having to do any of the other things

burden on behalf of its projects.</p>

<h2>Leadership Mentoring, Advice and Guidance</h2>

<p>Many of Conservancy's <a href="/about/board">directors</a> are

  experienced FLOSS project leaders.  They offer themselves as a resource

  to member project leaders who need assistance or face challenges in

  their work leading their projects.</p>

<h2>Some Personal Liability Protection</h2>

{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Privacy Policy - {% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1>Privacy Policy</h1>

committed to protecting the privacy of our website visitors, our

supporters and our member projects.  In this policy,

Board of Directors, officers, management, staff, cooperating attorneys,

interns, volunteers, and consultants. As to all of the information

described below, Conservancy will not give, sell, rent, or exchange the

information with anyone else without your prior consent, except as

compelled by law (see section on Compelled Disclosure below).</p>

<h3>Information Collected</h3> <p>When you visit our site, Conservancy may

record the numerical Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer you

are using (and/or that of your router and/or firewall), the browser

software you use, your operating system, the date and time you access our

site, and the domain name and URL of the website from which you linked

directly to our site, in addition to other information.  We only use this

{% load date_within %}

{% block head %}

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Software Freedom Conservancy Complete Feed" href="/feeds/omnibus/" />

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Software Freedom Conservancy News" href="/feeds/news/" />

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Software Freedom Conservancy Blogs" href="/feeds/blog/" />

{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<div class="singleColumn">

  helps promote, improve, develop, and defend Free, Libre, and Open Source

  Software (FLOSS) projects.  Conservancy provides a non-profit home and

  infrastructure for FLOSS projects.  This allows FLOSS developers to

  focus on what they do best — writing and improving FLOSS for the

  general public — while Conservancy takes care of the projects' needs that

  do not relate directly to software development and documentation.</p>

</div>

<div class="columns">

<div class="column column-small column-left">

<p>